The management of a patent portfolio involves multiple stages. Initially, a decision is typically made as to what inventions are worth the investment of filing a patent application. Each filed patent application typically then goes through prosecution with the patent office. Finally, for each patent that is allowed, maintenance fees are usually payable at a variety of intervals to keep the patent in force. In some instances, an inventor, business manager, or portfolio manager may wish to review or watch a patent to check for potential infringement of the patent by a competitor. Manual efforts to perform this task, including some evidence of infringement, can be time consuming and of limited scope.
When analyzing a patent or patent application it is important to find out what the scope, or breadth, of the claims are. Evaluation of patent claim scope has traditionally been performed by reading and construing each claim. This takes significant time and effort by a skilled professional. It is therefore desirable to use a solution that completes patent claim scope evaluation automatically.